The truth about illicit drugs is something hidden behind so much urban mythology and political scaremongering. To me, it seems there are two very powerful voices in our society on drugs, prohibitionist worst-case-scenario authoritarian laws and pundits, with a sort of hedonistic everything-is-good-for-you mythology standing in stark contrast.
I don't beleive that the prohibitionist agenda needs any introduction. "Narco-hedonism", on the other hand, is more subtle. It saturates our entertainment world, with fame going hand in hand with drug use. It's glamorous thing, it's an artistic thing. Even the famous deaths do little to dampen the rebel icon of drugs.
Somewhere in between these two is the harm minimisation approach, ignored by prohibitionist governments as too permissive, and by narco-hedonism as lacking the rebellion and fun of drugs. It's a voice that is usually only heard by serious and long term drug users, after their drug use has started to take over their lives, too little too late. As someone who works closely with drug users, this is the approach I know most about.
So, in the spirit of harm minimisation, this is my brief introduction to the twin drugs Crack and Cocaine.
Production
The Coca plant generally grows in Central & Southern America, where it is a fairly common cash crop, especially in Columbia, Bolivia and Peru. In these countries the leaves are chewed as a pick me up, in the same way that western people drink coffee/Coke/tea/Pepsi. There is little narcotic value in the leaves, and they die too quickly to be used outside the countries where they are grown.
The process of turning these leaves into a high class drug begins with soaking the leaves in water and sulphuric acid. It is then treated with various other acids and alkalis to produce a paste. This is sometimes smoked, but it doesn't hold its potency for very long so it's not usually exported. The paste is mixed with acetone, ether and hydrochloric acid and dried out. This makes Cocaine, the high society drug that urban legend says we can find traces of on most 50 notes. It's probably about 80%-90% pure, making it quite potent. Still that leaves about 10%-20% being acetone and acid, stuff that you wouldn't normally stick up your nose.
Thing is, it's expensive. So it makes a lot of sense for it treated in a variety of ways to expand the volume or turn it into a smokeable substance. Cocaine can't be smoked because it has a melting point of almost 200 degrees. One method is to create freebase cocaine, which involves adding a bunch of highly flammable ingredients and distilling an alkaline form of cocaine that can be smoked. This is a big effort, and isn't too common. What is common is Crack. Get cocaine, add water, baking soda, cook in microwave and vooshka! Crack. Lactose or artificial sweetner is added to bulk it out and have more product to sell. By this stage it's about 40% pure. It's also smokeable, which is how most people take it.
Narcotic ups and downs
Cocaine is generally snorted up the nose. It can be smeared on gums or in any other orifice that has blood vessels close to the skin. Yes, all of them. The clinical effects of the drug are constriction of the blood vessels, local anaesthetic and a release of the brain chemical Dopamine. This is a neurotransmitter that deals with pleasure and reward. When you do something that you enjoy, the brain releases some dopamine for a while, and you feel good about what you're done and then it sucks the dopamine back into it's holding cell. Basic psychology. See Pavlov's Dog.
Cocaine rushes to the brain and releases large amounts of dopamine and expends a large amount of dopamine. So an hour or so, there is a rush of immense pleasure and power until the dopamine finally breaks down. then you feel rather bummed cos your brain is low on dopamine. Which leaves the user with two options.
Eat lots of oats and other brain building food, and have a sleep to let your brain recover from the effort OR have another line, which is what the vast majority of users will do. This pushes out more dopamine into the brain, but there's less there so the high isn't as good. Given that most people use at parties and other glamorous events, porridge and a snooze isn't on the agenda. Usually they will not have ANY dopamine after a binge, and this is where the drugs starts really screwing with mental health. You have no dopamine left and it's near impossible to be motivated about something, because dopamine is the building blocks of motivation.
Physiogically, there are problems. Cocaine, as you may have noticed by now, has a lot of acid used in production. Smearing/Snorting it all over delicate skin has the effect of eating away flesh, but because it's a local anaesthetic, it's usually not noticable until the bleeding starts. In addition to overloading you with dopamine, it floods the body with adrenaline. So your body gears up for action, and up goes the heart rate, blood sugar levels, out comes the sweat. That's why using a lot or an unhealthy person using leads to heart attack.
Crack's different. Mostly it's smoked in a crack pipe. It needs to burn at about 90 degrees, and the smoke needs to be inhaled ASAP so pipes are short. 2 problems - smoke@90degrees + lungs = owch owch hot crack smoke burnies burnies and burnt lips from the over heated pipe. Lungs cop an absolute caning from crack, six months of smoking it is enough to do serious damage like dead tissue, weeping wounds, bleeds and burns. This is called Crack Lung. It's an unavoidable condition with crack smoking. Another nasty point is the fact that crack tends to melt a bit, and people sit it on a bed of cigarette ash to hold it together, and they end up inhaling ash into the lungs as well.
The high is a lot more intense with Crack. Instead of buzz for an hour, there is an even intenser high with an even higher drain on dopamine hence an even harder come down. The levels of dopamine in the brain is very addictive, and many users are compelled to smoke pipe after pipe to try and regain that first high, which is impossible, with the decreasing amounts of dopamine available in the brain.
It can also be injected. There seems to be nothing good about this at all. it needs to be transmuted into an acid again so that it can be disolved and shot up. Transmuting it to an acid means more acid is added to the mix, decreasing purity and tearing up veins. The high still lasts 1/4 of an hour, so it needs to be injected 4 times an hour. Heroin isn't normally injected more than 3 times a day. So veins go on strike very quickly, and all the fun and games of IV drug use get set into overdrive.
Narcoto Morte
Crack/Cocaine are stimulants. So over use/ continued use stress the body and can kill someone of heart failure, stroke or fits. It can also contribute to death with related factors like weight loss, disrupted sleep, anxiety, panic, paranoia and psychosis.
See John Belushi, John Entwistle[The Who], Andy Gibbs [BeeGees]... there's a list a mile long, and that's only of famous people.
So what conclusion to draw? As Mr MacKay said, "Cocaine is bad, mmmmmkay"? Or Jim Morrison, "I don't know what's goanna happen, man, but I wanna have my kicks before the whole house goes up in flames!" Both of them seem equally stupid to me.